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Sunday, January 05, 2014

I've been a real fabric snob for many years. I would only stitch on linen or some other lucious evenweave fabric, and totally disdained the "lowly" Aida. Admittedly, the type of stitching I loved to do (Hardanger, Pulled Thread, specialty stitches) were impossible to do on Aida, and I had an aversion of straight cross stitch...found it boring actually.

Until three months ago.

I have been teetering on total burn out, verging on a breakdown, the last few months, due to the demands of taking care of both of my parents who both have advanced dementia, (as in LIVING with them 4 days a week) and caring for and worrying about my daughter who has cancer (who is living in our home full time with her family), as well as holding down a full time job. To say that my plate is full is an understatement. That plate is falling to the floor, and about to break.

Anyway, I had not done any stitching...AT ALL...for about 9 months. But the desire to put needle to fabric actually resurfaced, and I started pulling out some old projects that I had kitted up long ago, and started in. It felt good to get some of these projects done, and actually see that I had accomplished something! But then, even doing cross stitch on evenweave, where I had to count "up two, over two" for every single stitch got to be too much for my foggy brain to handle. So I pulled out an old project with Aida in the kit, and low and behold, it was just what I needed. No counting. No decisions to make. Just the rhythmic in and out of my needle. And so Aida is back in my life!

Here are pictures of what I have done since September. Yet, as I am typing this, I remember that there are TWO more pieces I have tucked away that I forgot to pull out for the pictures! So that is 11 projects total. More than I have stitched in a long long time!﻿

All of my old patterns are packed in a box in a storage building, so I have had to look fresh for most of these patterns. Pinterest has been a great resource for tracking down freebies on the internet, and I have found beautiful designs I had never seen before! I have many of them bookmarked to purchase later, and it's been fun working up some of these small freebies! Now I just need the time to get these finished into something!! LOL!